Radio Girls(96)

Fielden gazed mournfully into his empty glass.

“Whatever else the Deathly Ghoul is, he wants the BBC to be admired. Siepmann hasn’t the imagination to do better in Talks than Our Lady. So they can grumble all they like, but speaking as a master of grumbling, I can assure them it doesn’t tend to come to anything.”

It was strange, Fielden being more optimistic than her. Perhaps it was the effect of the sun.

At least he knows to be on the lookout. And I’m not going to let anything happen to Miss Matheson—that’s for damned sure.

Another croquet ball flew toward her and she caught it and stalked away, tossing the ball up and down, to a harmonized chorus of disapproval.

As the afternoon melted into evening, the staff was encouraged toward the marquee stretched over a temporary dance floor. Despite a host of grumbling, the small band held firm to their instructions and played no dances from later than 1921.

“I suppose we should be grateful it’s not minuets,” Phyllida said.

Maisie, nibbling grapes, was determining where she could drag Phyllida to tell her what had happened when a voice sounded beside them.

“Enjoying the day, Miss Musgrave?”

Cyril. She glanced at him, and took her time finishing chewing and swallowing before she answered.

“Very much, thanks. You?”

“Copacetic.”

“Now who sounds like they’re from New York?”

He laughed, the sun glinting off his hair and all those freckles standing out on his cheeks, and she couldn’t help it—she smiled back.

“Maybe you’ve been a good influence on me,” he suggested.

“That’s debatable,” she said.

“Is it? Can you have it be a Talk, perhaps?”

“Now, now, Mr. Underwood. Some of our subjects are arcane, I’ll grant you, but never inane. You hear the difference?”

“Clever. I don’t suppose you’ve ever read Latin, Miss Musgrave?”

“I’ve never even read Pig Latin.”

“Do you know what ‘pax’ means?”

“Well, yes, I am a moderate disciple of Mr. Bartlett’s, you know. He’s fond of any word that means ‘peace.’”

“Well, then. Pax?”

She studied him. Two years had passed since their fraudulent date. Not only did she continue to keep her head up, but she had risen through her department and was on the brink of becoming a producer. His equal. And she had an absent but still fond young man. She stuck out her hand.

“Pax.”

“Thank you. I don’t suppose you’d like to dance?”

Maisie gulped and glanced around the venue. Phyllida was being guided in a very expert fox-trot by Billy. Hilda was across the marquee, having a deep tête-à-tête with Mary Somerville.

“You don’t have to,” Cyril said hastily, tossing his head to hide his embarrassment at her silence. “I was only—“

“No, it’s all right,” she broke in. They’d made peace, after all. “But I’m a spectacularly lousy dancer.”

“I bet that’s not true,” he said, taking her hand.

Twenty seconds later, she asked if she could call in that bet.

“We didn’t set the terms,” he said, laughing. “Actually, Miss Musgrave, you move rather nicely. You just need a few lessons. And you really need to relax.”

“I never relax. It’s the New York in me.”

He laughed again and adjusted his arm more firmly around her waist. Her feet got a vague sense of how they were supposed to move, and she found herself doing something that approximated dancing.

“There, you see?” he asked.

Unfortunately, she did. Over his shoulder, she saw that Siepmann had connived Hilda into a dance. Something about seeing Hilda letting herself be touched by him made Maisie’s skin crawl. She wanted to run over and pull him away. No, she wanted to rip his arms from his torso.

She stumbled, and she and Cyril knocked right into Phyllida and Billy.

“Maisie, are you all right?”

She wasn’t sure which of them asked. She shook her head.

“Sorry. I . . . I think I need something to drink, actually.”

It was Cyril who took her over to the bar.

“It’s still quite hot. You do look very flushed. A lemonade should refresh you.”

“Thank you,” she said, not hearing him.

It was all too much. The late-summer heat lying so heavily all around them like a gas cloud. She preferred the cooler weather, trusted it more. This blaze was too blinding, encouraging them all to let loose. And she had meant what she said. Relaxing was treacherous.

“Feeling better?” Cyril asked after she downed the lemonade in one gulp. He looked genuinely solicitous.

“I think so. Thank you.”

But there was Siepmann, talking to Reith again, and he had inveigled Hilda into the conversation. His hand was clutching her elbow possessively.

“You know, Miss Musgrave, you . . . ah . . . you’re really very—”

“I’m sorry,” she said suddenly, a wave of dizziness overwhelming her. She was not going to faint or scream, not where anyone could see. “I’ve got to . . . I’ll be back in a minute. Thanks.”

She wandered through the dusk, trying to think, yearning for silence and solitude. She found herself back at the croquet set, now abandoned—the sound effects men were just as Dionysian as she was when it came to the buffet.